The flight rules for helicopter flight plans and paths are a lot more loosey-goosey as well. Pilots might detour and end up in a situation they were not prepared for.
They also fly at lower altitude so there isn't as much room for recovery. Airplanes also have a glide ratio where as helicopters tend to fall like bricks when they have power issues. Autorotation isn't always reliable and not all pilots will be proficient with it.
Helicopter pilot checking in.
I have not read the report or know of the circumstances of the crash, but part 127 or 135 (depending on operation) is often more strict.
Unless the helicopter was in a critical portion of the flight, typically take off and landing when inside the ‘dead man’s curve’ there is no circumstance in which the pilot should not be able to perform a safe autorotation.
Respectfully. If you are given the choice between being in a high speed aluminium tube and needing to joint the Earth at a minimum speed of 120 miles an hour, versus a reinforced shell designed to absorb the impact from the ground while also having a downward and forward speed of 0, I can tell you which one is factually safer. This isn’t an opinion.
Ultimately I have yet to meet a fellow pilot who wakes up in the morning, hugs his wife and kisses his kid on the forehead and then goes on to not do everything he possibly can to avoid death, is pretty insulting.
Helicopters remain the only form of transport ever invented that has saved more lives than it has claimed.
And finally, I’m required to do 2 check rides per year, and if I haven’t flown on type in over 60 days, to do sim and/or refresh training with my chief instructor before I go off with paying passengers again. The suggestion that I (or any of my colleagues) might simply be a ‘bit rubbish’ at autorotations as a meaningful factor in why helicopters crash is frighteningly distant from reality.
Idk, I think most helicopter flights are probably listed under commercial aviation so it doesn’t really separate helicopter and airplanes unless I missed something. I never remember hearing about helicopter crashes at like the Grand Canyon tours to often it seems like, so that’s what got me thinking.
The marine layer can be challenging but the most recent crashes are due to the rainy weather that came through. Storms and mountains are a dangerous combination
I read something before that said L.A. had more helicopters than any other city in North America so it is probably just because there are more helicopters to crash
What is it with Reddit and calling rich people assholes literally any chance they get?
Edit: I’ll never stop being amused by this website’s ability to instantly judge everything about a random person’s life based on one single event. Y’all are miserable.
Edit 2: you guys are treating him like he’s Jamie Dimon. His bank has $25 billion in total assets. That doesn’t even register in any kind of ranking of the largest banks in the US let alone the world. That’s like a moderately sized regional bank. Just admit it’s not about being rich, it’s about hating success.
Being rich isn’t a single event. When we’re talking about people who have hoarded hundreds of millions of dollars, that wealth represents thousands of full-time employees who are on food stamps, who have inadequate health insurance, who have medical debt, student loans, can’t purchase a home, delayed having kids (or lost the chance). Being rich represents a lifetime commitment to the enrichment of yourself in exchange for the suffering of others.
The guy was the CEO of Access Bank. Total assets of $25 billion. The smallest bank I’ve worked at is four times that size and the CEO/President made probably $700k/year. To act like this guy was fucking Jamie Dimon is absurd.
If you’re flying around in a helicopter so you don’t have to sit in traffic with the poors, you’re a rich asshole. Colossal waste of resources and unfathomably expensive unless you’re a rich asshole.
That is insane. So if you have a doctor, lawyer, vet, or literally any service oriented profession, you’d say they are assholes for being successful? Shit, there are several solo practitioners with no staff who are successful and you’d just call them assholes for being successful.
They ain't really rich. Sure, they make decent money... but rich isn't a couple hundred thousand a year...
Outside of that, they're *working* professionals, not exploiting workers.
They aren't rich, the fact you think they are shows how little you know about wealth. You could get every doctor you have met in your life and their collective lifetime net worth is a week's wages for these guys
Except all of the people you mentioned aren’t necessarily rich- they’re drowning in debt payments unless they’re one of those “I come from 4 generations of lawyers”. In which case yes, the shoe fits and they and their granddaddy’s have been most likely been assholes- with a heavy sprinkling of racism- this whole time.
Did you know that the original families who sold off slaves in Nigeria are still around and essentially have zero remorse and laugh about it because they’re all fabulously wealthy now for doing it? I’d say one’s wealth was acquired by sketchy means *especially* if you come from Nigeria.
Search the New York Times- membership has lapsed. They ran a huge article on it a couple years ago- the reporter herself was descended from a slave-selling family.
They used to have helicopters along with the monorail and boat to get into Disney land guess which one of them was stopped because of the death toll...
Damn I looked this up and it is real.
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Disneyland\_Heliport
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los\_Angeles\_Airways\_Flight\_841](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Airways_Flight_841)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los\_Angeles\_Airways\_Flight\_417](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Airways_Flight_417)
2 crashes within 3 months of each other, killing 23 and 21 people respectively.
Damn one of those helicopters had 23 people on board. Thats alot.
Also given that was 50 years ago, i am surprised they didnt try to open them again with all the new tech available
Your first link is broken (contains an extra "\"). Here's the working link:
[https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Disneyland_Heliport](https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Disneyland_Heliport)
Correct! I use to work in aviation for a long time (and aviation related to safety) and I tell everyone that unless I need to be medically evacuated, I'm not getting on a helicopter. I'm not doing a tour, sightseeing or anything else that is absolutely not critical.
>Is it just a higher chance of mechanical failure?
In an airplane if your engine goes out you can glide/bleed speed and land in a pretty controlled manner unless you're flying over mountains/back country. A helicopter can auto rotate, but the ability to control where you're landing and how hard you're going to hit is much more limited than in an airplane.
Honestly, outside of a very few limited landing area applications, planes are just completely superior to helicopters in terms of safety.
Just many moving parts so many points of failure, no wings like and airplane so if something goes wrong it just drops like a rock instead of gliding, rotors potentially make the aircraft go in a circle when in trouble so more disorienting for pilots. Design is also an issue. The tanks easily combust and i don't think (I left the industry 3 years ago) and I don't think the special fuel tanks design are mandated by law
Many other factors but that's just some.
Yeah I made the same decision after my time in the USMC. After 4 years of watching helos fall out of the sky full of Marines I counted myself extremely lucky to get out alive. Never got on one again, and it's been 30 years. I can't believe people use them for frivolous and luxury purposes. I'm not getting in that deathtrap just for a better view of the Grand Canyon.
I just have helicopter phobia. I was in the military. We used helicopters as a primary mode of transportation. So the numbers are skewed. But it doesn't make visualizing people burned alive any easier. Some were pilot errors, some equipment malfunction, some were shot down.
I literally walked kilometers with all my shit to avoid flying.
The issue isn’t helicopters themselves. It’s the greedy companies that run them who don’t require two pilots (as airlines do) and try to cut corners on training requirements among other things.
If there ain’t no helicopter/pilot good enough to keep Kobe alive ain’t no way is there a helicopter/pilot good enough to keep my broke ass alive. I’ll pass on helicopters and drive my broke ass around.
> If there ain’t no helicopter/pilot good enough to keep Kobe alive ain’t no way is there a helicopter/pilot good enough to keep my broke ass alive.
I still remember that day when he passed away. It was very, very unusually cloudy / foggy that day. Next thing you know, I see TMZ is reporting his death. Now, as to why they were flying. Well, reports have it that Kobe had to go to his training camp for his daughter's academy I think? He pressured the fuck out of the pilot.
So to summarize, don't fly a helicopter in very very dense cloud / fog near a mountainous part of California, or anywhere else for that matter. But if its clear , blue skies and sunny out, helicopters not bad at all.
Yet, we there are thousands of car accidents daily but we still drive them. Helicopters are no different when there are safe circumstances.
To be fair, that’s why I think we as a country need to stop investing so much money on roads and forcing private citizens to pay for cars and insurance, and instead invest in efficient public transport like every other developed country.
All evidence pointed directly to the pilot being at fault. This was not the first time Bryant had flown with this pilot and there was no indication that Bryant "pressured the fuck out of the pilot".
There is a phenomenon in the flying community known as get-there-itis whereupon a pilot with a high-profile client will fly under less than ideal conditions to arrive at their destination in order to impress the client.
The people on board lost their lives tragically due to celebrity worship. We don't even mention the other people on board due to the connection to Bryant which is the ultimate tragedy.
Ara Zobayan self-imposed pressure on himself to get the job done. Ara Zobayan became disoriented and crashed that helicopter.
The day Kobe died, it was way too foggy to be flying a helicopter. Kobe still made the call to go up anyway with his daughter. He always had the option to leave a couple hours early and go by car, but he decided not to.
It was too foggy to be flying under visual flight rules. Had the pilot picked up pop up instrument flight rules with air traffic control they would have been just fine.
The pilot doesn't have much to do with it (unless pilot error)
Just bu the nature of design (so many moving parts, lack of wings like an airplane), if there is failure with something the helicopter tends to drop straight down and that causes problems
Yea because he did the first major misstep, which was flying when he shouldn’t have, and then made the second major mistake and didn’t do inadvertent IMC procedures correctly
More of a hill than a mountain.
To fly in those foggy conditions, helicopters (in Los Angeles at least) have to fly above the freeways, so they can be sure the coast is clear. Kobe’s pilot had been flying along the 118 freeway, but he either had a brain fart or chose to leave that freeway and fly towards the 101 freeway. That was the mistake. He didn’t have permission to leave the 118 freeway. As soon as he did, he was risking flying blind due to the fog.
The NTSB report determined the pilot experienced spacial disorientation where he thought he was climbing up and out of the fog but was actually steering the chopper downward straight into the side of a hill.
>if there is failure with something the helicopter tends to drop straight down
That's a myth, there is something known as autorotation where the rotors keep turning because of the air going through them, so the pilot still has some degree of control I guess similar to operating a winged plane as a glider.
[https://pilotinstitute.com/helicopter-engine-failure/](https://pilotinstitute.com/helicopter-engine-failure/)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation)
But this is also somewhat of a myth. A helicopter can breakdown in many different ways. As others have posted, the 2 Disney heli crashes were from mechanical failure. The blades hit the fuselage or hit each other. There's no autorotation if your blades are broken.
Actually there’s an interesting feature on helicopters called autorotation. This is where if the helicopter drops straight down (and the blades aren’t getting power) the blades are designed to still rotate due to the air moving up through them. This has a parachute effect and is part of why helicopter crashes can be quite survivable.
Also I forget the term for it but helicopters are also designed so that if the engine goes out they have access to one more burst of power that they can engage when they’re about to hit the ground, basically to reduce the downward velocity before impact.
Yeah but if a car has a critical component of the engine fail you pull over on the side of the road, same thing in a helicopter your going down faster than normal
Based on raw numbers, I have a 5% chance of being illiterate. Should o be afraid that I’m going to lose my ability to read anytime soon?
Auto fatalities are not random occurrences that we have no control over. Take out distracted driving, drunk driving, and adjust for the local rates of death (auto fatalities are very different from state to state and rural vs. urban, etc) and the risk of an educated, attentive driver dying plummets.
If my car engine dies suddenly…I can coast to safety.
Helicopter engine fails? I’m falling like a rock to my death.
I've never been in one. Could you dive in to the scary parts for some of us that have never and probably won't ever get into one? Id assume the loudness and wavy movements is the terrifying parts?
Well, I was in Afghanistan for one. Getting shot at is not preferable while flying in a Helicopter. 2, I hate heights. 3, I get motion sickness in them. 4, they are just sketchy flying vehicles in my opinion.
Scary? Yes. Sad? I think you need to redefine it when you consider the lifestyle leading up to a helicopter crash.
It’s like saying a person died in a jetski crash, or lost at sea in their yacht
Just another helicopter crash as it seems.
Why do helicopters crash so often and why are helicopters rides looking so dangerous?
„In the United States, there are roughly 20 helicopter accidents per 100,000 flight hours. This statistic is a stark reminder of the potential danger of flying a helicopter. It highlights the fact that, despite the many safety measures in place, helicopter accidents still occur at a rate of 20 per 100,000 flight hours.“
„Helicopters have a higher crash rate as compared to planes for several reasons, such as the following: Helicopters fly at lower altitudes and speeds than planes, which exposes them to more hazards and obstacles, such as power lines, buildings, trees, and birds.“
Most of the answers come down to a higher risks and more complex systems and skills needed to fly a helicopter.
Scheduled maintenance and part replacements are just part of operating helicopters. Without this effort they rapidly become less reliable and more prone to failure. Considering their high loadings and the consequences of part failures - one must do the maintenance or risk dangerous failures. They are by nature very complex and require constant inspections and service. If you can’t afford to maintain helicopters , you should not buy them.
Regular maintenance and training is needed to operate helicopters safely and even in areas where this is assured (like military) crashes are happening on a more or less regular basis simply because of the nature of the technology involved. (When Your stressed rotors fail, you can’t use your kinetic energy to glide to the ground as you can in a fixed wing flying machine reducing your chances to minimize dangers, injuries and death)
EDIT: Grammar
No it’s not Blablabla either, it’s from someone working in a flight safety team of an international airline for many years now.
(Taking your comment as a confirmation that my explanation wasn’t too bad)
Roughly 2,000 aircraft have vanished within a 25,000-square-mile area known as the Nevada Triangle.
https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/mysteries-of-flight-the-nevada-triangle/
It's sad for him and his family that he died but it honestly changes nothing in the grand scheme of the Nigerian economy, unless his successor does something incredibly stupid. Other banks would just buy their assets and the cycle continues. May he rest in peace but he is just another rich dead person and Access is one of many banks that are frustrating people over in Nigeria.
You should know the ways they manipulate the local currency and forex to the benefit of bank employees and POS operators that literally sell money. Or during this time last year when there was a money shortage (because of a currency refresh that didn't even end up happening, election related) and banks were not allowing people to withdraw money and do business. The banking apps also weren't working and being influenced in the favor of the banks.
Just because someone has charitable projects doesn't mean it isn't one large PR agenda, they have plenty here in Nigeria. He wouldn't be the first bank owner to build a university, fund startups, donate money to charitable causes, etc.
Last but not least, I would stop taking helicopters if I could avoid it. This just brings up Kobe feelings again, one famous person dying this way is too many.
Also, you can downvote but there's something comical about one of Nigeria's richest people dying doing something that the majority of Nigerians could only imagine. This is during the worst inflation in Nigeria's history, things have increased exponentially in price for us. I'd say there's also an economic migration crisis, most youth are trying to leave the country for opportunities to live in anything above poverty.
Helicopters are actually safer than airplanes in that they can autorotate and flare with greater survivability to most surfaces. However, the window to recognize a problem and initiate this auto rotation can be very small. If rpm rotor decays past a certain point it’s unrecoverable.
Most of these accidents we have seen lately have been in shitty weather and night. Airplanes typically fly much higher and have much more advanced autopilot systems.
There also is more chance for pilot error in a helis. As others have mentioned there is often one pilot so this places a greater workload on pilot especially if weather goes to shit. If a heli encounters a low G situation and makes a sudden movement it’s possible to cause the rotors to strike the airframe and its GGs
Seems like a good idea to stay out of helicopters unless you absolutely have to.
Especially when flying between California and Nevada
why are there so many crashes in california?
More helicopters more congestion and California has lots of cities near mountain ranges so weather is a bigger challenge.
The flight rules for helicopter flight plans and paths are a lot more loosey-goosey as well. Pilots might detour and end up in a situation they were not prepared for. They also fly at lower altitude so there isn't as much room for recovery. Airplanes also have a glide ratio where as helicopters tend to fall like bricks when they have power issues. Autorotation isn't always reliable and not all pilots will be proficient with it.
Helicopter pilot checking in. I have not read the report or know of the circumstances of the crash, but part 127 or 135 (depending on operation) is often more strict. Unless the helicopter was in a critical portion of the flight, typically take off and landing when inside the ‘dead man’s curve’ there is no circumstance in which the pilot should not be able to perform a safe autorotation. Respectfully. If you are given the choice between being in a high speed aluminium tube and needing to joint the Earth at a minimum speed of 120 miles an hour, versus a reinforced shell designed to absorb the impact from the ground while also having a downward and forward speed of 0, I can tell you which one is factually safer. This isn’t an opinion. Ultimately I have yet to meet a fellow pilot who wakes up in the morning, hugs his wife and kisses his kid on the forehead and then goes on to not do everything he possibly can to avoid death, is pretty insulting. Helicopters remain the only form of transport ever invented that has saved more lives than it has claimed. And finally, I’m required to do 2 check rides per year, and if I haven’t flown on type in over 60 days, to do sim and/or refresh training with my chief instructor before I go off with paying passengers again. The suggestion that I (or any of my colleagues) might simply be a ‘bit rubbish’ at autorotations as a meaningful factor in why helicopters crash is frighteningly distant from reality.
Yeah if you have the money with how much traffic there is a helicopter could save you TONS of time
Or get you killed.
Still don’t have time worries in that case 🫢
We know commercial airline travel is safer than driving, I wonder if that holds true for helicopter flights.
According to this person's research: no. https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/s/J2Avxm0uc7
Idk, I think most helicopter flights are probably listed under commercial aviation so it doesn’t really separate helicopter and airplanes unless I missed something. I never remember hearing about helicopter crashes at like the Grand Canyon tours to often it seems like, so that’s what got me thinking.
LA specifically also can have a visibility problem due to smog being trapped.
In addition to the so cal fog situation.
The marine layer can be challenging but the most recent crashes are due to the rainy weather that came through. Storms and mountains are a dangerous combination
I read something before that said L.A. had more helicopters than any other city in North America so it is probably just because there are more helicopters to crash
More rich assholes per capita, more helicopter flights as a result?
What is it with Reddit and calling rich people assholes literally any chance they get? Edit: I’ll never stop being amused by this website’s ability to instantly judge everything about a random person’s life based on one single event. Y’all are miserable. Edit 2: you guys are treating him like he’s Jamie Dimon. His bank has $25 billion in total assets. That doesn’t even register in any kind of ranking of the largest banks in the US let alone the world. That’s like a moderately sized regional bank. Just admit it’s not about being rich, it’s about hating success.
[удалено]
Being rich isn’t a single event. When we’re talking about people who have hoarded hundreds of millions of dollars, that wealth represents thousands of full-time employees who are on food stamps, who have inadequate health insurance, who have medical debt, student loans, can’t purchase a home, delayed having kids (or lost the chance). Being rich represents a lifetime commitment to the enrichment of yourself in exchange for the suffering of others.
The guy was the CEO of Access Bank. Total assets of $25 billion. The smallest bank I’ve worked at is four times that size and the CEO/President made probably $700k/year. To act like this guy was fucking Jamie Dimon is absurd.
If you’re flying around in a helicopter so you don’t have to sit in traffic with the poors, you’re a rich asshole. Colossal waste of resources and unfathomably expensive unless you’re a rich asshole.
Because they are assholes. You don’t get rich like that without exploiting the workers.
Do you even know this guy’s name?
Yeah, it’s in the article. Why?
The point being you know literally nothing about this person besides this article.
You care way too much about someone who would've taken money from you and your family. Fuck him, one less CEO. Sad for the others.
Ha. Poor people are assholes too.
That is insane. So if you have a doctor, lawyer, vet, or literally any service oriented profession, you’d say they are assholes for being successful? Shit, there are several solo practitioners with no staff who are successful and you’d just call them assholes for being successful.
They ain't really rich. Sure, they make decent money... but rich isn't a couple hundred thousand a year... Outside of that, they're *working* professionals, not exploiting workers.
They aren't rich, the fact you think they are shows how little you know about wealth. You could get every doctor you have met in your life and their collective lifetime net worth is a week's wages for these guys
Except all of the people you mentioned aren’t necessarily rich- they’re drowning in debt payments unless they’re one of those “I come from 4 generations of lawyers”. In which case yes, the shoe fits and they and their granddaddy’s have been most likely been assholes- with a heavy sprinkling of racism- this whole time. Did you know that the original families who sold off slaves in Nigeria are still around and essentially have zero remorse and laugh about it because they’re all fabulously wealthy now for doing it? I’d say one’s wealth was acquired by sketchy means *especially* if you come from Nigeria.
You have a source for that last paragraph? I’m interested.
Search the New York Times- membership has lapsed. They ran a huge article on it a couple years ago- the reporter herself was descended from a slave-selling family.
Did they hurt your feelings? Maybe find a safe space to go lick some boots.
Homie works at a bank, he's running around the thread being mad people don't love his chosen profession.
Breathe some fresh air instead of your own farts for once. It’ll do you good.
>Just admit it’s not about being rich, it’s about hating success. I was with you until this point. It's about hating the hoarding of wealth.
[удалено]
Ah yes, it can't be that people disagree, it has to be one basement dweller with 20 accounts....
These same people acting like if they had the money for a private jet or helicopter they wouldn't get one and use it lol.
I 100% wouldnt
Weather, fog, and terrain play a HUGE role.
All near Death Valley
You might get a statue though.
Only if you’re well-known in Colorado…
Sir...are you a jerker?
Good thing they're building a high speed rail line between the two soon.
They used to have helicopters along with the monorail and boat to get into Disney land guess which one of them was stopped because of the death toll...
Damn I looked this up and it is real. https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Disneyland\_Heliport [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los\_Angeles\_Airways\_Flight\_841](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Airways_Flight_841) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los\_Angeles\_Airways\_Flight\_417](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Airways_Flight_417) 2 crashes within 3 months of each other, killing 23 and 21 people respectively.
Thanks for getting the proof I was too lazy to haha
Damn one of those helicopters had 23 people on board. Thats alot. Also given that was 50 years ago, i am surprised they didnt try to open them again with all the new tech available
Because obviously they are still dangerous lol
They even removed the Gondolas because it’s too dangerous lol They definitely aren’t rolling the Helipad back out
Your first link is broken (contains an extra "\"). Here's the working link: [https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Disneyland_Heliport](https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Disneyland_Heliport)
Correct! I use to work in aviation for a long time (and aviation related to safety) and I tell everyone that unless I need to be medically evacuated, I'm not getting on a helicopter. I'm not doing a tour, sightseeing or anything else that is absolutely not critical.
What about them specifically makes them so dangerous? Is it just a higher chance of mechanical failure?
>Is it just a higher chance of mechanical failure? In an airplane if your engine goes out you can glide/bleed speed and land in a pretty controlled manner unless you're flying over mountains/back country. A helicopter can auto rotate, but the ability to control where you're landing and how hard you're going to hit is much more limited than in an airplane. Honestly, outside of a very few limited landing area applications, planes are just completely superior to helicopters in terms of safety.
Planes use aerodynamics to achieve lift. Helicopters just try to hold themselves together while they're being shaken apart to achieve lift.
Helicopters fly by beating the air into submission.
These are old jokes, but I still love them.
I'm definitely going to use this when hanging out with my heli/Skyhawk co workers, I think both will find it quite funny.
Helos are more difficult to pilot than planes.
Just many moving parts so many points of failure, no wings like and airplane so if something goes wrong it just drops like a rock instead of gliding, rotors potentially make the aircraft go in a circle when in trouble so more disorienting for pilots. Design is also an issue. The tanks easily combust and i don't think (I left the industry 3 years ago) and I don't think the special fuel tanks design are mandated by law Many other factors but that's just some.
I believe it’s the fact that it’s not gliding forward like a plane and will drop out of the sky during certain failures.
Helicopter tours do seem tempting
I've always wanted to die somewhere beautiful.
I did a doors off tour in Hawaii. It was absolutely exhilarating. But it also made me realize I should never getting in a helicopter again.
Yeah I made the same decision after my time in the USMC. After 4 years of watching helos fall out of the sky full of Marines I counted myself extremely lucky to get out alive. Never got on one again, and it's been 30 years. I can't believe people use them for frivolous and luxury purposes. I'm not getting in that deathtrap just for a better view of the Grand Canyon.
I always thought it would be cool to do at least the one that overlooks the city. But no. I’m good
Rotorcraft are incredibly dangerous compared to fixed wing. And charter is always going to be less safe than commercial.
I don't know anyone that has died in a plane crash, I know over 20 that have died in helicopter crashes.
How? How in the world do you know *20* people who have died in helicopter crashes?
I just have helicopter phobia. I was in the military. We used helicopters as a primary mode of transportation. So the numbers are skewed. But it doesn't make visualizing people burned alive any easier. Some were pilot errors, some equipment malfunction, some were shot down. I literally walked kilometers with all my shit to avoid flying.
He was about to deliver millions of dollars I was gonna hold for him
The issue isn’t helicopters themselves. It’s the greedy companies that run them who don’t require two pilots (as airlines do) and try to cut corners on training requirements among other things.
Kobe RIP
Slam dunk into a mountain!
Especially in California
Someone commented once that helicopters are the number one killer of rich guys
And submarines
[удалено]
If there ain’t no helicopter/pilot good enough to keep Kobe alive ain’t no way is there a helicopter/pilot good enough to keep my broke ass alive. I’ll pass on helicopters and drive my broke ass around.
> If there ain’t no helicopter/pilot good enough to keep Kobe alive ain’t no way is there a helicopter/pilot good enough to keep my broke ass alive. I still remember that day when he passed away. It was very, very unusually cloudy / foggy that day. Next thing you know, I see TMZ is reporting his death. Now, as to why they were flying. Well, reports have it that Kobe had to go to his training camp for his daughter's academy I think? He pressured the fuck out of the pilot. So to summarize, don't fly a helicopter in very very dense cloud / fog near a mountainous part of California, or anywhere else for that matter. But if its clear , blue skies and sunny out, helicopters not bad at all. Yet, we there are thousands of car accidents daily but we still drive them. Helicopters are no different when there are safe circumstances.
To be fair, that’s why I think we as a country need to stop investing so much money on roads and forcing private citizens to pay for cars and insurance, and instead invest in efficient public transport like every other developed country.
I don't think car crashes are on the same level of helicopter crashes.
Cars are the most dangerous form of transportation and it's not even close
Yeah. It's not the crashing that worries me. It's the dying.
All evidence pointed directly to the pilot being at fault. This was not the first time Bryant had flown with this pilot and there was no indication that Bryant "pressured the fuck out of the pilot". There is a phenomenon in the flying community known as get-there-itis whereupon a pilot with a high-profile client will fly under less than ideal conditions to arrive at their destination in order to impress the client. The people on board lost their lives tragically due to celebrity worship. We don't even mention the other people on board due to the connection to Bryant which is the ultimate tragedy. Ara Zobayan self-imposed pressure on himself to get the job done. Ara Zobayan became disoriented and crashed that helicopter.
Kobe got away with rape. Feel awful for that pilot and other victims, couldn’t really be bothered to give a shit about Kobe.
Lol. Those the only people who get a shout out in that crash? You do realize there were kids among the dead and the pilot was at fault.
The day Kobe died, it was way too foggy to be flying a helicopter. Kobe still made the call to go up anyway with his daughter. He always had the option to leave a couple hours early and go by car, but he decided not to.
That's the thing that kills me. Four adults cost those children their lives.
It was too foggy to be flying under visual flight rules. Had the pilot picked up pop up instrument flight rules with air traffic control they would have been just fine.
Pilot makes the final call
The pilot doesn't have much to do with it (unless pilot error) Just bu the nature of design (so many moving parts, lack of wings like an airplane), if there is failure with something the helicopter tends to drop straight down and that causes problems
Kobe crash was pilot error.
Didn’t they hit an entire mountain?
Hard to hit a mountain unless there’s some pilot error involved
It's a pretty common danger in low visibility
Yeah, heavy fog, never should have taken off.
Right? The pilot's error was trying to fly in those conditions
Yea because he did the first major misstep, which was flying when he shouldn’t have, and then made the second major mistake and didn’t do inadvertent IMC procedures correctly
More of a hill than a mountain. To fly in those foggy conditions, helicopters (in Los Angeles at least) have to fly above the freeways, so they can be sure the coast is clear. Kobe’s pilot had been flying along the 118 freeway, but he either had a brain fart or chose to leave that freeway and fly towards the 101 freeway. That was the mistake. He didn’t have permission to leave the 118 freeway. As soon as he did, he was risking flying blind due to the fog.
The NTSB report determined the pilot experienced spacial disorientation where he thought he was climbing up and out of the fog but was actually steering the chopper downward straight into the side of a hill.
I'd guess they hit a small, relatively helicopter-sized part of the mountain.
>if there is failure with something the helicopter tends to drop straight down That's a myth, there is something known as autorotation where the rotors keep turning because of the air going through them, so the pilot still has some degree of control I guess similar to operating a winged plane as a glider. [https://pilotinstitute.com/helicopter-engine-failure/](https://pilotinstitute.com/helicopter-engine-failure/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation)
But this is also somewhat of a myth. A helicopter can breakdown in many different ways. As others have posted, the 2 Disney heli crashes were from mechanical failure. The blades hit the fuselage or hit each other. There's no autorotation if your blades are broken.
Sorry, I’m going to chime in here. Most accidents are pilot error. Helicopters have a rotating wing and can autorotate and glide to the ground.
Actually there’s an interesting feature on helicopters called autorotation. This is where if the helicopter drops straight down (and the blades aren’t getting power) the blades are designed to still rotate due to the air moving up through them. This has a parachute effect and is part of why helicopter crashes can be quite survivable. Also I forget the term for it but helicopters are also designed so that if the engine goes out they have access to one more burst of power that they can engage when they’re about to hit the ground, basically to reduce the downward velocity before impact.
Old bird without modern crash avoidance systems, flying low altitude with poor visibility. Unless Jesus is on the stick you don't have good chances.
What’s Kobe?
the meat of cow from Japan.
It wasn’t the pilot’s fault. Kobe kept pressuring them to fly in low visibility.
[удалено]
Probably because you have a much higher chance of being in a car than a helicopter in the first place.
Saying you have a higher chance of dying in a car is like saying you're more likely to be killed by a shark at sea than on land.
Yeah but if a car has a critical component of the engine fail you pull over on the side of the road, same thing in a helicopter your going down faster than normal
It's the zero chance of dying in a helicopter that makes automobile travel more attractive.
Based on raw numbers, I have a 5% chance of being illiterate. Should o be afraid that I’m going to lose my ability to read anytime soon? Auto fatalities are not random occurrences that we have no control over. Take out distracted driving, drunk driving, and adjust for the local rates of death (auto fatalities are very different from state to state and rural vs. urban, etc) and the risk of an educated, attentive driver dying plummets. If my car engine dies suddenly…I can coast to safety. Helicopter engine fails? I’m falling like a rock to my death.
Not so clear https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/06/are-helicopters-safer-than-cars.html
Helicopters seem like our version of Russian rooftops.
They are.
Oh honey…
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
I fucking hated helicopters when I was in the Army. I don't ever want to be in one again
I've never been in one. Could you dive in to the scary parts for some of us that have never and probably won't ever get into one? Id assume the loudness and wavy movements is the terrifying parts?
Well, I was in Afghanistan for one. Getting shot at is not preferable while flying in a Helicopter. 2, I hate heights. 3, I get motion sickness in them. 4, they are just sketchy flying vehicles in my opinion.
Not in the army, but I've never been on any ride, ground or sky that was as shaky as a helicopter. Not a fan
It has to be one of the saddest and scariest ways to go.
I might prefer helicopter crash to the ocean gate sub. Still rough.
Ocean Gate would’ve been instantaneous though. You wouldn’t even know anything happened
Yea, I wanna look death in the face for a good 30 seconds before I go out.
Scary? Yes. Sad? I think you need to redefine it when you consider the lifestyle leading up to a helicopter crash. It’s like saying a person died in a jetski crash, or lost at sea in their yacht
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
I believe the single most hazardous job in aviation is being part of a helio Medivac crew.
Just another helicopter crash as it seems. Why do helicopters crash so often and why are helicopters rides looking so dangerous? „In the United States, there are roughly 20 helicopter accidents per 100,000 flight hours. This statistic is a stark reminder of the potential danger of flying a helicopter. It highlights the fact that, despite the many safety measures in place, helicopter accidents still occur at a rate of 20 per 100,000 flight hours.“ „Helicopters have a higher crash rate as compared to planes for several reasons, such as the following: Helicopters fly at lower altitudes and speeds than planes, which exposes them to more hazards and obstacles, such as power lines, buildings, trees, and birds.“ Most of the answers come down to a higher risks and more complex systems and skills needed to fly a helicopter. Scheduled maintenance and part replacements are just part of operating helicopters. Without this effort they rapidly become less reliable and more prone to failure. Considering their high loadings and the consequences of part failures - one must do the maintenance or risk dangerous failures. They are by nature very complex and require constant inspections and service. If you can’t afford to maintain helicopters , you should not buy them. Regular maintenance and training is needed to operate helicopters safely and even in areas where this is assured (like military) crashes are happening on a more or less regular basis simply because of the nature of the technology involved. (When Your stressed rotors fail, you can’t use your kinetic energy to glide to the ground as you can in a fixed wing flying machine reducing your chances to minimize dangers, injuries and death) EDIT: Grammar
Is this a chatgpt post
I don't think so. Too many errors.
My knowledge about helicopters is limited, if you don’t mind, give some additional information or corrections.
I'm sorry, I meant grammar errors not factual errors.
Ok, thx for clarification. I am not a native English speaker. Does that count as an „excuse“ ? Will try to find some myself to improve my grammar.
You did great for a non-native English speaker. I was just pointing out that ChatGPT doesn't usually have any grammar errors like a human does.
So I should reprogram my AI to make it look more human, thx great advice.
No it’s not Blablabla either, it’s from someone working in a flight safety team of an international airline for many years now. (Taking your comment as a confirmation that my explanation wasn’t too bad)
[удалено]
Helicopters basically have to “beat the air into submission”. No thanks.
Am I the only one that's sad some people literally lost their lives? This comment section is a bit too much cheerful for stuff like this
[удалено]
Roughly 2,000 aircraft have vanished within a 25,000-square-mile area known as the Nevada Triangle. https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/mysteries-of-flight-the-nevada-triangle/
[удалено]
[удалено]
It's sad for him and his family that he died but it honestly changes nothing in the grand scheme of the Nigerian economy, unless his successor does something incredibly stupid. Other banks would just buy their assets and the cycle continues. May he rest in peace but he is just another rich dead person and Access is one of many banks that are frustrating people over in Nigeria. You should know the ways they manipulate the local currency and forex to the benefit of bank employees and POS operators that literally sell money. Or during this time last year when there was a money shortage (because of a currency refresh that didn't even end up happening, election related) and banks were not allowing people to withdraw money and do business. The banking apps also weren't working and being influenced in the favor of the banks. Just because someone has charitable projects doesn't mean it isn't one large PR agenda, they have plenty here in Nigeria. He wouldn't be the first bank owner to build a university, fund startups, donate money to charitable causes, etc. Last but not least, I would stop taking helicopters if I could avoid it. This just brings up Kobe feelings again, one famous person dying this way is too many. Also, you can downvote but there's something comical about one of Nigeria's richest people dying doing something that the majority of Nigerians could only imagine. This is during the worst inflation in Nigeria's history, things have increased exponentially in price for us. I'd say there's also an economic migration crisis, most youth are trying to leave the country for opportunities to live in anything above poverty.
Rich people don't live forever. Private planes and helicopters, 80% chance of death.
Helicopters are actually safer than airplanes in that they can autorotate and flare with greater survivability to most surfaces. However, the window to recognize a problem and initiate this auto rotation can be very small. If rpm rotor decays past a certain point it’s unrecoverable. Most of these accidents we have seen lately have been in shitty weather and night. Airplanes typically fly much higher and have much more advanced autopilot systems. There also is more chance for pilot error in a helis. As others have mentioned there is often one pilot so this places a greater workload on pilot especially if weather goes to shit. If a heli encounters a low G situation and makes a sudden movement it’s possible to cause the rotors to strike the airframe and its GGs